socrates wrote:
> What I have is very minimal. No compiler for the dead language, no
> text books, only one reference manual and hundreds of program codes
> that used the dead language.
>

Depending on your actual goal, there may be alternatives:

- if you care about capturing the behaviour of the binary
executions, it may be easier to work with the object code.
I recall that in the early days of computing, people had
System/360 machines emulating 704 emulating plug-boards.

- If you want to capture the "program design" but not the
exact semantics, it may be easier to rewrite by hand.
Also, it may be good enough to just write the compiler
according to the manual.

- If you want to recreate a compiler to continue development,
good luck. Considering they managed to lose the compiler,
would you trust the source code to match the binary? Can
you imagine debugging a compiler like that?

> Do you think it's possible to build a translator with such minimal
> resources? And could you give me some pointers on how to start
> building a translator?

On the whole, I would think "minimal resources" will not be
enough for any of the ways.
--
Stanley Chow CTO stanley.chow@cloakware.com
Cloakware Corp (613) 271-9446 x 223
[Hmmn. I never thought of the late 1960s as the early days of
computing. -John]